In March 2016, Michelle has an argument with her fiance and breaks up with him. Heartbroken,
she packs things up and abandons her home, leaving her engagement ring and keys behind. After driving
out of the city for a while, she stops at a gas station and sees a truck parked behind her
but pays no mind to it. Afterward she goes back to the road and ignores the calls from her ex,
who leaves begging messages in her voicemail. Tired of his whining, Michelle decides to turn
on the radio and learns that a power surge has caused a total blackout in the city. At that
moment her phone rings again and when she looks down, suddenly something hits her car and makes
it flip as she passes out. Moments later, Michelle wakes up in a dull concrete room and discovers her
leg is injured. Someone has given her a cast and chained it to the wall. She tries to free her leg
from the chains to no avail, then she notices her things nearby on the ground. Michelle grabs the IV
pole and uses it to poke at her things until she finds the phone, dragging it with the pole toward
her. Unfortunately she has no signal inside this room. At that moment heavy footsteps can be heard
and Howard shows up, carrying food for Michelle and a gun on his belt. Michelle immediately asks
for mercy, but Howard ignores her and fixes the IV bag before announcing he just wants to keep
her alive. He also gives her some crutches so she can start practicing how to walk with them. Still
terrified, Michelle swears that her fiance will call the cops, but Howard says no one is looking
for her and gives the chain key before leaving. Michelle immediately frees herself and tries to
open the door, but unfortunately it’s locked. Refusing to give up, Michelle uses the key to
file one of the crutches to transform it into a stake, then she waits by the door. Howard doesn’t
return and eventually Michelle gets tired of waiting, so she makes a plan. She lights her
shirt on fire and throws it into the vent, which triggers the fire alarm and forces Howard to come
back. As soon as he opens the door, Michelle tries to ambush him, but Howard quickly grabs her and
injects her with a sedative. Sometime later Michelle wakes up and finds Howard with more
food for her. He says she should be thankful that he found her, and when Michelle asks for freedom,
Howard tells her there’s nowhere else to go. He explains something dangerous has attacked
the area, probably a nuclear attack, so they’re safe down there in his bunker. According to him,
the air is contaminated and it’ll only be safe to come out in a few years, but Michelle is hesitant
to believe him. She wants to call her family, yet Howard is sure everyone outside is dead. At
that moment a noise coming from the bunker can be heard and Howard rushes out of the room to
take care of it, leaving her locked up again. A few hours later, Michelle wakes up when she hears
a noise from above that sounds like a car passing by. She also discovers the door is finally open,
so she immediately leaves the room. She finds tons of shelves with supplies and sitting nearby
is Emmett, who has various injuries including a broken arm. Michelle tries to ask him to team
up to escape, but Emmett also believes the air outside is contaminated. At that moment Howard
finds them and informs Michelle that the noise she heard had been Emmett dropping things. Then
he gives Michelle a tour of the bunker. He truly is well prepared for this: the bunker is fully
decorated to make it look homey, it has lots of entertainment to keep themselves busy, and enough
supplies to last years. There’s only one bathroom in his bedroom though, and Howard tells Michelle
to take a shower without closing the door because he doesn't trust her yet. At least the shower has
a curtain that keeps Michelle covered. Later the power fluctuates and Michelle says it could’ve
been a car passing by, still remembering the noise from before. However Howard insists there aren’t
any people outside and shows her his silent radio, which isn’t picking up any signals from outside,
as proof nobody is around. He also mentions someone named Megan in passing, not explaining
anything other than she isn’t with them anymore. Tired of Michelle doubting him, Howard takes her
to the set of doors at the entrance and lets her look through the window. Michelle sees dead pigs
and Howard claims they were killed by the poisoned air, but Michelle can’t help noticing a truck with
blood stains on it and gets more suspicious. Later Emmet tells Michelle a bit about Howard
because he’s known him for a while: Howard used to work on satellites for the military before
moving to this farm, where Emmett helped him build the bunker. Michelle admits she thinks
Howard is lying but Emmett disagrees because he saw a huge explosion-like light in the sky. It
made him so scared that he forced his way into the bunker to survive, which is how he injured
his arm. When Michelle explains she heard a car earlier, she’s suddenly interrupted by Howard,
who says food is ready. During dinner, the mood is tense and awkward so Emmett tries some chitchat,
jumping from topic to topic. It drives Howard crazy and yells at him to shut up. This gives
Michelle an idea and she starts flirting with Emmett while gently touching his arm and following
his conversation ideas. Howard immediately gets jealous and pushes Michelle against the wall,
yelling at her for not respecting him. Michelle takes this chance to steal the keys from his belt
before apologizing and pretending to behave. At that moment another car could be heard passing
by and distracts Howard, so Michelle uses the opportunity to hit him with a bottle and run
away. She makes it to the entrance and manages to unlock the first door because she saw Howard do
it earlier, but she’s struggling with the second one. Outside, a car stops near the farm and as
soon as Michelle sees it, she starts yelling for help. A woman comes out of the car and
runs toward the bunker door, begging to be allowed inside and saying she didn’t touch “it”. Michelle
is horrified to see the injuries on the woman’s face, proving Howard’s story. Finally giving up,
Michelle goes back inside. Afterward Howard confesses that he was the one who crashed
Michelle’s car, but it had been an accident. When the attack happened, he panicked and
drove too fast to reach his bunker, causing the crash. Howard shares some of Megan’s old clothes
with Michelle and while she stitches the cut from the bottle attack, he finally opens up. Megan was
his daughter, but his ex-wife took her away to Chicago and he hasn’t seen her in a while. The
conversation ends with Howard showing Michelle a picture of Megan. From then on, the trio starts to
live in harmony and gets used to the new routine in the bunker. They cook together, play games,
and share stories about their lives. Michelle doodles on magazines and reveals she used to be
a fashion designer, which she misses. One day, the bunker starts shaking and the lights flicker as a
loud noise indicates helicopters are passing by. Howard thinks it’s the enemy searching the area
for any survivors, claiming that his experience in the Navy can tell those weren’t American choppers.
Suddenly an alarm goes off because the bunker’s air filtration system has gotten blocked. Because
of her smaller size, Michelle is sent into the vents to restart the system. The space is narrow
so she struggles a bit, but eventually she makes it to the mechanical room and follows Howard’s
instructions to make the filtration system work again. At that moment Michelle notices a ladder
that leads to a window hatch, so she climbs up and is shocked to find the word “help” scratched
on the window with a bloodstain. When she climbs down, she finds some earrings that
also have blood on them. Later when they’re alone, Michelle shows Emmett the earrings together with
Megan’s photo because they match. However Emmette says that’s actually Brittany, a girl who went to
high school with his sister and disappeared two years ago. As Michelle tells him about the word
“help” scratched from the inside, another photo falls from Howard's book showing him and Brittany
together. To the duo’s shock, Brittany’s shirt is the one Michelle is currently wearing, which means
Howard killed her. Emmett and Michelle discuss how to proceed when they’re interrupted by Howard,
who tells Michelle to take a shower because of the possible contamination. In the bathroom, she sees
the shower curtain and realizes she can build a hazmat suit with it. Soon she and Emmett make a
plan. In the evening while Howard is watching an old VHS movie, Emmett grabs a pair of scissors
and hides them in his sling. Then he points out that Michelle had been contaminated when
she entered the bathroom, so Howard’s paranoia forces him to throw away the shower curtain,
which Michelle later retrieves in secret. For the following few days, Michelle starts working on the
suit in her room using random objects she takes from around the bunker, like plastic bottles for
the mask. Whenever she hears Howard walking by, she hides all the things under her mattress. One
day Howard makes Michelle and Emmet take out a barrel from a cabinet and explains there’s
a very dangerous acid inside. He also reveals he found the tools in Emmett’s bed and throws
them into the acid as he demands an explanation. Hoping to save their plan, Emmett lies and says he
took the tools to make a weapon because he wanted Michelle to respect him like she respects Howard.
Emmett also apologizes and Howard accepts it, only to suddenly shoot Emmett in the head. As Michelle
steps back in horror, Howard comes closer and says he did it for her because if Emmett was making a
weapon he would’ve hurt her. Then Howard sends her to her room while he gets rid of the body.
Michelle deals with her grief while staring at Emmett’s ID when she’s interrupted by Howard,
who has washed and shaved. He leaves her some ice cream and says that from now on they can
be a very happy family. After Howard leaves, Michelle finds Emmett’s bus ticket to university
in his wallet and decides she mustn’t give up or Emmett would’ve died in vain. The rest of the day,
Michelle continues to work on the suit. When she hears Howard coming, she rushes to hide everything
but accidentally leaves the mask out, so she hides it in the vent. Howard comes in to tell her about
dinner and a screw falls on him, so he checks the vent but doesn’t finds the mask. He turns
around to ask why the vent lid is loose and sees something peeking out from under the mattress,
so he pushes Michelle away and finds the suit. Michelle uses the chance to run out of the
room and close the door behind her. Next Michelle goes to Howard’s room to grab a chemical coolant,
discovering Emmett’s body in acid in the process. When Howard shows up and tries to stop her,
she kicks the barrel of acid toward him and makes him fall. As the acid starts dissolving
the carpet and spreads, Michelle jumps through the door and leaves the room. Soon the acid
causes a fire to start and sets the alarm off while Michelle retrieves the hazmat
suit from her room. A half-burnt Howard tries to go after her again, so Michelle
brings down a shelf to knock him down and escape. Unfortunately the fire is blocking the main door,
meaning Michelle has to climb through the vent to reach the mechanical room. Howard hears her up
there and starts stabbing the vent, but she dodges every attempt. Then Howard grabs her by the ankle,
however Michell kicks him until he lets go of her. When she finally makes it to the mechanical room,
Michelle puts on the suit and uses tape to seal every seam. Then she climbs the ladder and uses
the coolant on the padlock until she breaks it and opens the hatch to finally leave the bunker.
Once outside, Michelle carefully looks around before running to Howard’s truck. As she stumbles,
she accidentally causes a tear in her suit, so she desperately seals it up with tape. At that moment
she hears a noise and looks up to discover some birds flying by, which means the air is clean.
She removes the mask and takes a deep breath, glad to be safe. Then another noise rumbles through the
sky and Michelle sees an aircraft in the distance. She also notices something moving in the shed so
she hides, thinking it’s Howard. However at that moment the bunker blows up. The explosion alerts
the aircraft, which starts flying toward the farm. As it gets closer, Michelle is shocked to notice
it’s an alien spaceship. Terrified, she gets into the truck, but it doesn’t have any keys. Next she
tries the car left by the hurt woman, only to trigger the alarm. The aliens are coming closer,
so Michelle runs to hide in the shed and finds the woman’s body on the floor. Then she uses a hole in
the wall to look outside and sees a creature checking out the car. Desperate to escape,
Michelle searches the dead body for the car’s keys and when the alien is about to look into the shed,
she turns the alarm off, so the creature goes back to the car instead. Afterward Michelle sneaks out
of the shed and runs toward another house, but the alien hears her and starts chasing after
her. However both of them suddenly stop when they hear a noise near the house: it’s the spaceship
coming closer with the bright light Emmett had seen. The spaceship starts releasing gas,
so Michelle rushes to grab the mask and puts it back on right before the gas blows up the house.
Then Michelle runs to hide in the truck only for the alien to block the door and steal her mask as
it moves back. Now Michelle can close the truck, which is suddenly pulled up by the spaceship. At
that moment Michell finds a lighter and a wine bottle in the truck, which she uses together
with some maps to create a Molotov bomb. Once the truck is close enough to the spaceship,
she throws the bomb at the huge creature, causing the alien to explode and drop the truck. The
spaceship falls and crashes in the middle of the field while Michelle survives the fall thanks to
the truck’s seats. Afterward Michelle escapes in the woman’s car and drives away, knocking out a
mailbox with the address “10 Cloverfield”. Minutes later, the car radio picks up a transmission from
survivors, which mentions people gathering in Baton Rouge for safety while another group is
fighting in Houston. Michelle decides to go to Houston, ready to fight more aliens.